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Tip: Setting up a Minolta PagePro 9100 printer under Snow Leopard

Mac OSX 10.6 brought quite a few new but subtle features and changes, one of those subtle changes was the dropping of support for the AppleTalk protocol. Many people who upgraded to Snow Leopard (or newer versions of OSX) got caught out and suddenly found themselves with a non-functioning printer.

I was aware of this change but even so I found myself in the same position, and despite all the various articles and posts I read I couldn't get my Konica Minolta PagePro 9100 printer working. I resorted to sharing my printer via an old iMac that was running OSX 10.4 and printing that way, it worked but would take a long time to print a single page and frequently had to be rebooted to keep it working.

After running like that for a few months I decided to try and figure out how to get the PagePro 9100 working directly again as I couldn't handle using the same slow process any more. Amazingly I managed to find a Konica Minolta setup guide and it actually worked! So here's the process:

Configuring a PagePro 9100 printer under Snow Leopard

I followed instructions in an old Konica Minolta support PDF document that you can download from the Konica Minolta site, unfortunately their site is rubbish and doesn't let you link to files easily so here's a link to download it:

Note: Before you start you'll need to know your printers IP address, the PagePro 9100 can be set to have a fixed IP address but this wasn't needed when printing using AppleTalk so yours may not be set up with one. You'll need to get that changed using the printer's controls on the top. You really need to get this sorted out before you can proceed any further. Update:See end of article for help with IP address settings on your printer !

Ok, here's the simple setup process:

You need to set the printer up using the IP printing method, you'll see a blue circular globe icon in the Add Printer dialog so click that option.

Use the Line Printer Daemon option under the 'Protocol' drop down.

Enter the fixed IP address of your printer into the 'Address' field.

Enter a queue name in the 'Queue' field (I used PagePro 9100).

The 'Name' field will probably have taken the IP address automatically but this can be changed to PagePro 9100 too.

Select the 'Select Printer Software' in the 'Print Using' dropdown at the bottom. You should be able to find the Konica Minolta PagePro 9100 PPD file in the list. Choose that from the list.

Set the appropriate trays / bins etc for your printer etc and then that should be you set up hopefully!

Addendum: Configuring the IP address settings on the PagePro 9100

In response to a request for help in the comments below I've added some instructions on how to configure the IP address settings on the PagePro 9100. Configuring the settings is a bit of a pain due to the tiny little single-line display on the printer, but hopefully these instructions will help!

You need to make sure the printer is not getting a dynamic IP address via DHCP, so you need to disable DHCP on the printer. Once that is switched off you can then set the fixed IP Address that is required in order to set it as per the instruction in this article.

To get to the settings to do this press the green 'Online' button on the printer controls to put the printer into Offline mode, then use the 'Select' / 'Next' / 'Previous' buttons to move through and select options.

Now that you are in the TCP/IP options you need to disable DHCP, select 'DHCP' from the available options (there are quite a few to choose from, just keep clicking through using the Next/Previous buttons), set this to '#disabled' and then click the 'Menu' button once to move back up one level.

You now need to set the fixed IP address, you should be back up one level with 'DHCP' showing in the screen. Click next a few times and select 'Internet Address', you should now be able to enter all the digits of your IP address. Please note that you need to include 3 digits for all four parts of the address, so rather than just '192.168.0.4' you need to enter '192.168.000.004'.

Make sure to use whatever IP address range your network runs on, routers use various different ranges so you need to set an IP address that is appropriate for your network's range.

Addendum #2: Get default page size on PagePro 9100 to be A4 instead of 'Other'

If you're using the PagePro in the UK or at least with UK region settings in order to print to A4 paper then you may find that whenever you print that the printer always uses a default page size of 'Other' instead of A4. Although this actually prints to A4 correctly it always bothered me that it showed this way, so I decided to figure out what the problem was.

After a bit of looking around in the PagePro 9100 OSX EN.PPD file I found all the entries relating to A4, in PPD files the dimensions of paper sizes are configured using a dimension called points, basically there are 72 points to an inch. In the case of A4 in this PPD the dimensions used are 596 by 842, however, A4 is a metric-based page size of 297mm by 210mm so I checked out what these convert to in points.

It turns out that the PPD rounds all of the page dimensions to the nearest point, so I then edited the PagePro's PPD file to use the accurate point dimensions for A4 which are 595.28 by 841.89 (you need to replace it in a few locations in the file). I then re-setup the printer with the updated PPD and it now uses A4 as the default page size once more! It seems that OSX 10.6 is fussier about the specific page dimensions than OSX 10.5 was, but this tweak sorts it out. I'm sure you could modify the PPD for any other paper format that you wanted to use, just google the correct point dimensions for your page size and the update it in the file.

Addendum #3: OSX 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, 10.10, 10.11, 10.12

These instructions will basically work for all version of OSX since Snow Leopard, so 10.7 Lion, 10.8 Mountain Lion, 10.9 Mavericks, 10.10 Yosemite, 10.11 El Capitan definitely all work and 10.12 Sierra should be fine too as the protocols used are the same.

Thanks for all above, the only place I could find to begin to solve my problem.
I'm a complete novice - can I ask you how to find my printers IP address, on the status page I've printed out there is nothing that looks like the IPaddress in your example. I connect via ethernet cable - is that good?

@Pisco: I presume you mean if you change to a fixed IP address on the PagePro? Basically yes, your old Macs should be fine, the printer settings won't affect their ability to connect to it. You should be able to use the standard AppleTalk method that I presume they are using already.

@Pisco: No problem, hope it goes well! I should mention too that I have always used a fixed IP address on my PagePro even before Snow Leopard, mainly because I used to have Windows PCs on the network and their connections required it to be fixed whereas the Mac is much more flexible.

Hi, I have followed the instructions to a tee up until having to change the IP address to one in the range of my network. I have a static IP address for my internet connection and have DHCP active on my router to supply the address of my connected devices. While these IP address never change do I still have to disable DHCP in printer config, or can i leave it. It seems after trying both ways it still doesn't work. Are there any additional settings on the Konica that may be interfering with this configuration.

@Robert: I would say that having a static IP address is the preferred way. Feasibly if your router can lock an IP address to always assign that to the printer that could be ok but I can't guarantee it.

I'm not aware of anything else that might cause it not to work in regard to settings on the Konica. The control panel is a bit fiddly so just make sure that the settings are being applied properly when trying it.

@Rick: First, I want to thank you for your quick response. Second, I have found a solution that might help others if they still can not get the PagePro 9100 to print on Snow Leopard. After checking the IP address of the printer, I found that the IP address was not in our range of devices on the network. So I changed it in the printers menu. I also changed the port number to 9100. After I made those changes I created a new IP printer but used the HP JetDirect Socket protocol instead and added the IP address I set the printer to followed by :9100 for the port I wanted it to use. Named the printer what I wanted, selected the correct PPD and BINGO its done. I can print everything now.

So with that I say THANKS for heading me in the right direction. My boss is now a happy camper and I don't have to shell out any cash for a new printer.

Thank you so much. I have been trying to solve this issues for months now. Konica Minolta has been CLUELESS. We have a service contract with them and they proved their worthlessness. I hope to never again see the flashing yellow circle and

Dear Rick,
Very nicely written article! Calm and concise.
Thanks.
I feel I'm almost there... 9100 sitting loaded, with the 'ready' light on, and now also appearing in the 'Print & Fax' panel. But if I open the print queue to try to print from Quark or Photoshop it tells me, with a yellow triangle icon, that it is 'unable to connect to the printer and will retry in 30 seconds'. I'm now rather stuck.
(All your other readers seem much more expert than I am)
Any good strategy? Tantalisingly close!

I'm there!
You were right. For some reason I still don't really understand, I seemed to be able to put in a new IP address (very carefully) and all seemed OK, yet when I tried to print there was no communication and I found it had reverted to the old one again… Eventually I stopped fighting this and used the 'old' address anyway, and… 'success'. (Sadly this dawning took a while!) I'll have to try to find enlightenment in the 9100 instruction book, but it is so opaque.

Thanks for this article at least it gives me hope. I have just upgraded my office macs without realising the printer would not work. I have done everything and it just comes up with the message "printer is busy" Can you help?

@David: "Printer is busy" means it's not really getting access properly. Are you sure your IP address is set properly on your printer? You need to make sure that you are using the right IP address range for your network too, my example of '192.168.0.4' works on my network but other networks may use a different IP range such as '192.168.1.4' or '10.0.0.4'.

The printer driver location for me is the following:

/Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/en.lproj/

You may not need the 'en/lproj' containing folder but that's where I have mine.

@Maria: I can't see any reason why changing a toner cartridge should upset the printer settings at all. I'd suggest checking all of the settings are still set the right way, perhaps remove the cartridge and put it back in again?

Hi Rick
I have now managed to resume printing. I'm not sure why but it works. However I need to enable 'Share this printer on the network". for everyone in the household to be able to access it. So my computer needs to be on.
Is there anyway around this?

@Maria: It's hard to say really, I'd check what the network settings are on your computer and compare that with the other computers. It shouldn't require sharing the printer via your machine.

Are the other machines Macs? If not and they are Windows machines then you may need to re-setup the printers on those machines (without sharing it from yours), Windows has the downside when configuring printers via IP address like this that if it changes then you need to re-setup the printer.

Solution for:
***************
Left by Maria Sayers on 2012-03-23 09:42:42 #
Hi there,
Followed your clear instructions and printer worked fine until now. Inserted new toner cartridge and now printer does nothing but stay on pause. Any ideas?
**************
The printer Queue must be equal to name.
this work for me

I came across this post searching for help to get our ancient 1997 PagePro up and running with Yosemite, after our newer printer died. I could not even find the PPD on the terribly designed Minolta/Konica site! Thank you for having this post! And yes, your method works with Yosemite as well as Snow Leopard.